Saturday, October 13, 2012

I Hate The War

Let me start with a confession. Tuesday, September 26th, I both called out Tom Hayden and gave him credit. He had found an important sentence in a report on Syria in the New York Times (by Tim Arango) and blogged about it at The Nation. He had ignored an even more important sentence. I called him out. As is obvious in that entry, I really would have preferred not to. I do give him credit for highlighting the fact that a Special-Ops brigade has just been sent back into Iraq. Ted Koppel, however, had already reported in December that Special-Ops would remain in Iraq. In addition, Tom missed Arango's most important sentence -- a point we'd been making for months because it is happening -- the White House is in negotiations with Nouri to send more US troops into Iraq -- back into Iraq. That sentence was right before the one Tom blogged six paragraphs about.

This is news and Tom's failure to find that sentence (it was right next to the one he highlighted) needed to be called out. And I will beat up on Tom here as needed. Sadly, it's needed a great deal as he's betrayed everything he either stood for or pretended to stand for. (I have been around Tom for years. I would have said "I know Tom Hayden" at one point in my life but now I wouldn't pretend to know what is real with him and what is fake.)

But I do give him credit for that one sentence getting highlighted. And because he did highlight that one sentence and because NYT is a paywall unless you subscribe, it made more sense to me to do a solid for Tom standing up (and it was standing up, he did tell some of the truth) by linking to him and not to the New York Times article. My thinking was, "No one's going to e-mail, 'I've already hit my allotted free articles at the Times this month!' And Tom's got a link in his post so they can access it that way." I wasn't aware I was creating a huge problem. Tom got credit, Tim Arango got credit by name, what's the problem.

Because some people don't read English as well as others. That's not an insult. But outside of the US, I have created a huge problem as people try to cover the story. A French journalist called me about that on Sunday and, starting Monday, I was linking to Tim Arango's piece. But there is huge confusion -- especially in the Gulf region -- about who wrote what and how.

Iraq and the United States are negotiating an agreement that could
result in the return of small units of American soldiers to Iraq on
training missions. At the request of the Iraqi government, according to
General Caslen, a unit of Army Special Operations soldiers was recently
deployed to Iraq to advise on counterterrorism and help with
intelligence.

Two foreign outlets in the region -- not Iraq news outlets -- have stories today. That's good. But, as the same friend who called me last Sunday points out, they're confused. I can't help that but will take accountability for linking to Tom which contributed to the confusion.

Tim Arango reported it for the New York Times. Tom Hayden blogged about it for The Nation.

While I will take ownership of my blame in the confusion, one of the articles is in a language I can read. The other isn't but translated by my friend on the phone. In both articles, they are grabbing from Arango, Tom and myself and calling it one report -- one outlet credits the Times but gets the date of publication wrong (not by a day or two but by weeks) and the other credits The Nation.

So for my part in the confusion, I will apologize. Don't see the "my error, my apology" or anything heartfelt?

I will take responsibility but I'm not feeling it's that big of deal.

In one instance, the outlet's crediting the paper (but forgets Tim Arango) and in the other Tom Hayden's credited for breaking the story. In both instances, whole sentences from Tim, Tom and myself appear in the reports without quotation marks.

I'm noting that but I don't care about it. The thing I care about is the news Tim Arango broke and it getting out. In a perfect world, Tim Arango would get credit for breaking the story. We have repeatedly given him credit for it here and at Third if someone objects and says, "Let's just say" the paper -- because it can be repetitive -- I will insist that he be credited by name. If Tom gets credited for it, so what, he had the guts to take part of the story to The Nation. That's more than anyone else at The Nation did. Democracy Now! did not tell you about Arango's report. The Progressive had no interest. I did not see ZNet repost Tom's post (the way they usually do). Go down the list. So if Tom gets some credit for Tim's report, well Tom showed some bravery in amplifying it so it's not making me cry, "Oh, the humanity!"

Back to not caring about the goulash that's being published. I would assume that Tim Arango wouldn't want to be credited for statements written by Tom (I am 100% sure that Tim does not want to be credited for statements I write) and vice versa. So, again, what matters is that the story is getting out there, the main point.

Again, what Tim Arango reported:

Iraq and the United States are negotiating an agreement that could
result in the return of small units of American soldiers to Iraq on
training missions. At the request of the Iraqi government, according to
General Caslen, a unit of Army Special Operations soldiers was recently
deployed to Iraq to advise on counterterrorism and help with
intelligence.

That is important. It should have come up at the debates -- especially at the debate Thursday. It should come up at the remaining debates.

Barack Obama and Joe Biden have repeatedly -- including this week -- lambasted Mitt Romney for supposedly wanting to keep troops in Iraq. (I'm saying supposedly because I haven't heard those remarks from Romney. I have heard distortions of Romney's remarks by both Barack and Joe -- and Factcheck.org has called out Barack's distortions.) Regardless of whether Romney wants that or not, it takes a lot of gall to attack someone else for supposedly wanting that when you're in talks with Iraq to put more US troops back into Iraq.

It is an election year issue. If it does come up in the debates, hopefully Tim Arango will get credit for his report. (However, if it does come up, I expect it will be credited as "the New York Times reported . . .")

Here, our point all along has been that this needs to be talked about. I wrote about topics I normally would ignore here and at Third in the hope that the topics would garner eye balls that don't usually drop by so that more people would be aware of what was taking place. As noted before, I had planned to go into my own personal past drug use and other topics with the hopes that those might also get eye balls that would see, in those entries, the following:

Iraq and the United States are negotiating an agreement that could
result in the return of small units of American soldiers to Iraq on
training missions. At the request of the Iraqi government, according to
General Caslen, a unit of Army Special Operations soldiers was recently
deployed to Iraq to advise on counterterrorism and help with
intelligence.

Getting the word out on that, in the end, is the most important thing.

I am fully aware that we have an international audience. Less so this week -- let me grab that right now.

The main site is on Blogger/Blogspot. We have two official back up sites. We have unofficial back up sites that community members and some readers have created on their own. (We are not the Facebook site and no one's ever e-mailed to say, "I created that!" So I have no idea what's up there.) In addition, the "Iraq snapshot" is reposted at various community sites and at various places all over the web.

Of the two official back up sites, British community members especially prefer the Blogdrive site. They created that. They prefer it to the main site. And they and others are upset that I am not cross-posting there and haven't for a week.

That's not me. I did try today. No luck. Last week through this past Tuesday, I tried repeatedly. To the point that writing entries was being delayed. I'm done with that. If and when Blogdrive is working, I will try to post as my old entries (under their original dates) as I can there. But I didn't walk out on the site or walk away from it. It's just not working currently.

Back to international audience. All are welcome. We're not interested in condemning a religion or a people and hopefully that helps people feel included. I make mistakes when translating Arabic articles which is why I will often say in a morning entry that we'll go into something in the snapshot after I've talked to a friend to check my understanding. Especially if it's one outlet only reporting something, and something big, I want to double check that I'm not misunderstanding what I'm reading.

If I make a mistake, it's not the end of the world and I can correct it.

But that's on me. And that's why my friend and I are in disagreement over how serious this issue is. You may be working on your English and reading this site as part of it. But I have not set out to be an English tutor (nor would I -- I'm dyslexic, I'm the last person you'd need). The information is here and you can use it. You can use it word for word and not credit and I won't care. (I used to not care about others getting credited for what I did. The community does care about that and I care about not getting e-mails from upset community members.) But how you use the information is on you, not on me.

And if I'm stating Tim Arango reported something in the New York Times and linking to Tom Hayden's post about Tim Arango's report, if that's confused you, that's on you. Like it was on me when I wrote about how 9 new members of the Electoral Commission and not one was a woman. And one was. The last one, the Turkman. The Turkman was actually a woman. And I did my correction on it.

I'll take the blame for many things (some friends say I wake up apologizing) but even I have my limits on how much of a sin eater I'll be for others.

Iraq and the United States are negotiating an agreement that could
result in the return of small units of American soldiers to Iraq on
training missions. At the request of the Iraqi government, according to
General Caslen, a unit of Army Special Operations soldiers was recently
deployed to Iraq to advise on counterterrorism and help with
intelligence.

That's the news, that's what matters. In a perfect world, Tim Arango would get credit for reporting it (for the New York Times) and any of his statements would appear in quotes or in bold. In a perfect world, Tom Hayden would get credit for reporting on the report (for The Nation) and any of his statements would appear in quotes or in bold.

I have no illusions that we live in a perfect world. If, like my French reporter friend, you do, I would argue you haven't been paying attention to the many wars still going on across the globe.

About Me

We do not open attachments. Stop e-mailing them. Threats and abusive e-mail are not covered by any privacy rule. This isn't to the reporters at a certain paper (keep 'em coming, they are funny). This is for the likes of failed comics who think they can threaten via e-mails and then whine, "E-mails are supposed to be private." E-mail threats will be turned over to the FBI and they will be noted here with the names and anything I feel like quoting.
This also applies to anyone writing to complain about a friend of mine. That's not why the public account exists.